The Story of "Uncle London"

An Old Slave brought lessons to Lang family for generations

from the Tribune & Georgian, November 10, 2000 by Heather Culp

Through the American Civil War, apartheid, and two world wars and more than four generations, one Camden County family lived under the care of one man who found his way into their hearts and family as the world grew and changed around them. That man, London "Uncle London" Jackson did not come to America by choice, and he never chose to join the Lang family, but the former slave decided that, although he did not chose his fate, he was a part of the family and he was going to stay there.

Jasper Lang, great-grandson of Isaac Lang Jr., remembers Jackson fondly. He recalls sitting many nights on his front porch listening to the old black man tell stories about how he came to be a part of the Lang family. Jackson would tell Jasper Lang of how he and his mother were captured and brought to America on one of the slave ships of running a trade in human servants from Africa to North America before the Civil War.

At the age of 12, Jackson and his mother were placed on an auctioning block by slave trader Mungin Smith in the middle of a square in Savannah. While the son stood by his mother, white men bid hundreds of dollars to purchase them, Jasper Lang remembers Jackson telling him.The former slave would tell how Isaac Lang, Jr., from Langsbury Plantation in the north end of Camden County, happened to be in the city with money in his pocket that day."He'd gone up there to buy his daughter Angie a piano," said Jasper Lang.

As the story went, when Isaac Lang, Jr., worked his way through town he found himself in the middle of the heated auction and could not help but join in. That day, Isaac Lang, Jr., did not buy a piano, but for $1,500 cash, he brought home Jackson and his mother."Uncle London used to tell me that story all the time. He always called himself 'Auntie's Piano' because of that," said Jasper Lang. From that day on, Jackson never stopped caring for the Lang family, said Jasper Lang. After the Civil War, Jackson received his freedom, two acres and a mule from the Freedmen's Bureau and established his own residence near the family.

Historians estimate Jackson to have been around 125 years old at the time of his death in 1941.

The Langs buried Jackson in a small cemetery behind his log cabin where his sons and wife had already been buried years before, said Jasper Lang. No marker was ever put on the grave.